Tag Archives: google.org

Bringing digital and media literacy education to more schools in Korea

Three years ago, the Center for Digital Literacy (CDL) embarked on a pilot program to bring digital and media literacy skills to junior high school students in schools across Seoul and Gyeonggi provinces. Through the Digital & Media Literacy Campus program, kids like Yang Chaemin have learned how to better evaluate online media sources and also to experience the fun and excitement that digital technologies like AR and VR have to offer.

Jacquelline Fuller at Geumho Girls Middle School

Here, I’m with Yang Chaemin and her classmates at Geumho Girls Middle School, where they’re learning to critically interpret online resources and are able to practice using a range of digital tools.

Two years ago, with a grant from Google.org, CDL was able to expand the program. Since then, they’ve reached 10,000 children across 200 schools. CDL has also delivered training to a thousand parents, equipping them with tips to help their kids use digital media. Working with parents is important because developing awareness for opportunities that technology creates often starts at home.

Given the incredible impact CDL has had over the last two years, we recently extended our support for CDL. Through an additional grant, CDL will now bring the program to another 7,000 students and train 600 more teachers across Korea. In this phase, they’ll especially focus on bringing the program to children in rural areas, where there are often fewer opportunities to access digital education.

Over the past few years, Google.org has had an incredible opportunity to support a number of education programs in Korea. Whether it's investing in digital literacy as we’ve done through CDL, or inspiring innovative thinking among children at the Gwacheon National Science Museum, we hope these efforts will equip more Korean youth with the inspiration, skills and knowledge to reach their potential.


Yeseo Yoo at Hanbada Middle School

“It was a miracle that I could have the opportunity to learn about digital literacy at my school. Through this class, I was able to do what I thought only adults could do and only professionals could do. I've experienced augmented reality, and I've designed a virtual reality space with my friends. The most interesting thing for me was big data analysis and infographic video production. Now I dream of becoming a software developer, creating something that didn't exist today and contributing to a beautiful world."  — Yeseo Yoo, 15-year old student at Hanbada Middle School, who attended CDL's program in 2018

How I teach my friends to know what’s actually true online

Editor's note: Madelyn Knight, 18, is a senior at Southport High School in Indianapolis and is the editor-in-chief of the school news magazine, The Journal. She was recently awarded the 2019 Indiana High School Journalist of the Year by the Indiana High School Press Association.  MediaWise is part of the Google News Initiative and is a Google.orgfunded partnership between The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG), theLocal Media Association(LMA) and the National Association for Media Literacy Education(NAMLE). MediaWise aims to teach one million students how to discern fact from fiction online by 2020.

The average time I spend on my phone each day is four hours and 48 minutes, according to a screen-time tracker on my smartphone. Three of these hours are devoted almost entirely to being on social media. When my friends from my high school use the same trackers, their results are similar to mine.

This means that every day, for three or more hours a day, I am exposed to an endless amount of information, and not all of it is true. Each day, I scroll through social media feeds, liking and commenting on my favorite posts. And every once in a while, I come across a post that makes me stop. Maybe it’s a claim about the world ending or a cool solar event captured by NASA. Maybe it’s about a new government policy or the latest celebrity news. But almost every time, I stop and think, “Is this real?”

In this area, I have an advantage over my peers. I am a student journalist, who has learned about media literacy and how news spreads. I’ve learned about fact-checking and bias within news sites because of being on my school’s news magazine. I know that not everything on the internet is true.

But not all of my friends are that lucky. I know that not everyone is as aware that there may be false information, and they don’t have the knowledge to combat it.

This is why we need MediaWise. Today’s teenagers and children have quite literally grown up on the internet. Yet we aren’t taught how to tell if something shared on the internet is real. It only makes sense to give teenagers a guide to notice the signs and how to conduct their own research on something they see online.

The first time I heard about MediaWise was at the High School Journalism Institute at Indiana University the summer before the beginning of my senior year. At the time, MediaWise had just begun, and they weren’t sure how or when they were going to have teens help fact-check. However, I knew I wanted to be a part of MediaWise right away. I kept up with the details and emails until finally, I joined theteen fact-checking network for the winter session in January.

As a part of the network, I’ve had the opportunity to make videos for MediaWise’s social media platforms, teaching people how to fact-check what they see online. One of my favorite tricks and tips is thereverse Google Image search, which makes finding an image on the internet super simple. I used it in my first fact-check, and I think it’s probably one of the most useful tools out there. What I noticed, however, is that a lot of my friends and peers didn’t even know it existed. Because of that fact-check, I know I am teaching people my age how to use that resource and create a simpler, more accurate online world.

One of Madelyn Knight's fact-checking videos.

Personally, I’ve definitely adjusted the way I look at the internet. When I show my friends a meme, they always joke, “Hey! Did you fact-check that?” They’ve sent me links to posts I could possibly fact-check, and that means they, too, are thinking about what they see online. It helps me realize that what I am doing is actually making a difference.

Being a teen fact-checker with MediaWise has taught me a lot about myself. But mostly, it’s taught me that I have the ability to make a difference in the world. I’m no longer complaining that people don’t know what they’re talking about online. I’m actually showing them how they can get better.

The Google News Initiative, one year in

In the first year of the Google News Initiative, our efforts have centered around a spirit of experimentation, with programs focused on three pillars: working with the news industry to evolve their business models, raising up quality journalism and driving new thinking and approaches in newsrooms. There’s still much to be done, but we remain committed to collaborating with publishers to build a stronger future for journalism.

Empowering sustainable business growth

The business of journalism is undergoing a major transformation as the focus expands from digital advertising to other ways of making money, like subscriptions. Last year, we worked with publishers to design Subscribe with Google (SwG) which makes it easy to subscribe and access news publications across surfaces and devices.

Today, nearly 50 partners from 19 countries have signed up to implement Subscribe with Google and publishers like The Washington Post, the Financial Times, Folha de S. Paulo and Nine Publishing are using the product. Beyond subscriptions we’re expanding to support publishers who monetize using contributions or membership-based models. The Guardian, a leader in the field, is our first partner to test this approach and will help to inform best practices before we fully launch later this spring.

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But technology is only one part of the solution. Deeply understanding the needs of readers, building new capabilities and adopting a subscriber-first culture require new approaches and commitments from news publishers. Our new initiative called the GNI Digital Subs Lab will help 14 publishers in North and Latin America transform their approach to digital subscriptions.

Elevating quality journalism

Every day, people come to Google to access quality journalism, but not everyone on the web acts with good intent. Combating misinformation requires forging partnerships with industry organizations, investing in better product solutions, and training journalists on the latest verification tools and technology.

In the last year our News Lab has trained nearly 300,000 journalists in person and online around the world on digital tools for journalism, with a goal to reach 500,000 journalists by 2020. We’ve partnered with the International Fact Check Network and dozens of newsrooms worldwide to quell the spread of misinformation, especially during key times like elections. We’ve supported initiatives like Verificado in Mexico, Comprova in Brazil, CekFakta in Indonesia, FactCheckEU and the journalist training network in India, which included over 100 newsrooms and reached thousands of journalists ahead of key elections—there’s more to come in Australia and Argentina. We’re working with First Draft on their CrossCheck tool, which helps journalists debunk and share information across the world—they’ve already trained hundreds of journalists ahead of the EU elections.

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Journalists attending News Lab workshop at the Worldwide Association of Women Journalists and Writers event in London

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Journalists in Bulgaria taking part in a News Lab workshop.

Our fact checking project launched in October 2016 to help people find articles that fact check claims made on the web. Earlier this month we unveiled a feature on YouTube in India that automatically surfaces third-party fact checks from eligible publishers alongside YouTube search results.

We’ll soon be launching two tools to help fact checkers work more efficiently and effectively. The Fact Check Markup tool makes it easy for reporters to put structured data markup into their fact checking content using the open standard ClaimReview, and the Fact Check Explorer helps journalists find fact checking articles for various topics through a simple search function. We’re also opening up APIs for these tools to help developers build their own applications to assist fact checkers across the world.

Beyond our products, we’re working to tackle the intentional spread of misinformation across Search, News, YouTube and our advertising systems. In the coming weeks we’ll launch a “How News Works” site, communicating the values that shape our approach.

And to teach the next generation the difference between fact and fiction online we launched a $10 million global media literacy campaign with Google.org last year. In the U.S., MediaWise—led by the Poynter Institute—has trained 6,000 teens, launched a Teen Fact Check Network and partnered with YouTube creators like John Green and Destin Sandlin on digital literacy programming.

In Europe we’re supporting Media Veritas to promote media literacy among the most vulnerable communities in Portugal, Student View in the UK to expand its school newsroom program and, in Finland, the Mannerheim Child Welfare Association to run 150 local events focused on digital well being.

New technology for news organizations

To help news organizations around the world experiment with new formats, we’ve given more than $5 million in audio innovation grants and launched a $25 million program with YouTube that funded 87 publishers to develop sustainable video operations.

TheGNI Cloud program, aimed at small and midsize news organizations, has provided over 6,000 free GSuite licenses and around $1 million in Google Cloud Credits to almost 100 publishers worldwide. Today we’re expanding the program to train 14 news organizations—including Clarín in Argentina and Nikkei in Japan—in machine learning to develop use cases around personalization and content tagging that may ultimately become real products.

Newspack is a partnership with Automattic and Wordpress.com to build a fast, secure, low-cost publishing system tailor-made to the needs of small and medium-sized newsrooms. Next week  the publications selected for phase one of the program will be unveiled.

This is just a snapshot of our efforts to build a healthy future for journalism—a vision that would not be possible without the collaboration and partnership of publishers from across the world.

Helping Latino students learn to code

Growing up in Costa Rica, I was always passionate about creating things and solving puzzles. That’s what drove me to computer science. I saw it as an opportunity to explore my interests and open doors to new possibilities. It's that love and passion that eventually helped me get to Google, and to the United States, where I now live.

Computer science requires students to learn how to think in a totally new way. Getting into that mindset can be really hard for anyone, but it can be even tougher if you’re learning key phrases, concepts, and acronyms in an environment that feels different from your everyday life.

That’s why I’m proud to share that Google.org is making a $5 million grant to UnidosUS, the YWCA and the Hispanic Heritage Foundation. The grant will bring computer science (CS) education to over one million Latino students and their families by 2022 with computer science curricula, including CS First, Google’s coding curriculum for elementary and middle school students. Additionally, it will support students' experience with how they learn about computer science, helping them explore CS and offering culturally relevant resources to engage parents.

This $5 million grant is part of a new $25 million Google.org commitment in 2019 to increase Black and Latino students’ access to computer science (CS) and AI education across the US. This initiative will help these students develop the technical skills and confidence they need for the future, and help prepare them to succeed in the careers they pursue.

Even as a fluent English speaker, I can’t count the number of times people misunderstand me because I pronounce things differently, or the times it takes me a little longer to understand because my day-to-day work language is not my primary language. This language barrier is not the only barrier—students from underrepresented communities, especially those who are Black and Latino, often don’t feel represented or connected to their first introduction to the field.

While Black and Latino students have equal interest in CS education, they often face social barriers to learning CS, such as a lack of role models, and a lack of learning materials that reflect their lived experiences, like those that are in a language they understand. On top of these social barriers, these students often face structural barriers, such as not having equal access to learn CS in or outside of the classroom. 

Along with the grant, CS First is launching its first set of lessons in Spanish. In the first activity, "Animar un nombre," students choose the name of something or someone they care about and bring the letters to life using code. The second activity, "Un descubrimiento inusual,” encourages students to code a story about when two characters discover a surprising object.

Today’s announcement is an exciting part of Google.org’s work to support students who have historically been underrepresented in computer science. These grants to partner organizations will help Black and Latino students access materials and engage with role models who feel connected to their culture. We will also help create more opportunities for students to access the courses they need to continue their studies.

To me, the new Spanish coding lessons are more than just a fun way to learn coding. They are opportunities for entire communities of students to see themselves reflected in computer science education materials, perhaps for the first time. It’s our hope that students like the ones I met will use CS to create more inventions and opportunities for us all.

Helping Indonesia prepare for disasters

In September last year, a large earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Within hours, a tsunami hit Palu, the provincial capital. Over two thousand lives were lost, making it the deadliest earthquake in 2018. Google.org and Googlers around the world responded by donating $1 million to support relief efforts led by Save the Children and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. We also rolled out our crisis response alerts and tools to provide emergency info those impacted.


This earthquake was only one of more than 2,000 disasters to strike Indonesia last year. Altogether, the government has estimated that these disasters affected some three million people, causing billions of dollars in damages and a tragic loss of life. Unfortunately, 2018 was not an anomaly and we know that Indonesia will continue to be challenged by natural disasters. At Google.org, we look to help nonprofits on the frontlines of global crisis through funding and volunteers. But we also believe in supporting solutions that could help mitigate the impact of future crises.


This is why we’re now helping Save the Children’s Indonesian partner, Yayasan Sayangi Tunas Cilik, with a $1 million grant. Through this grant, they’ll implement a national awareness campaign using online and offline platforms to ensure that schools are safe and children are better prepared for emergencies. It’s anticipated they’ll reach over half a million people, a majority of whom are women and children, some of the most vulnerable people in a time of crisis. Yayasan Sayangi Tunas Cilik will also engage in capacity building with local government bodies in order to improve coordination, planning and response for the Provincial and District level.

Google.org and Yayasan Sayangi Tunas Cilik

Announcing a Google.org grant to Yayasan Sayangi Tunas Cilik in Jakarta. From left to right: Randy Jusuf (Google Indonesia), Rudiantara (Minister of Communication and Informatics of Indonesia); Jacquelline Fuller (Google.org), Selina Sumbung (Chairperson, Save the Children-Yayasan Sayangi Tunas Cilik), and Bambang Surya Putra (Directorate of Disaster Preparedness, National Disaster Management Agency) 

While disasters like the Sulawesi earthquake are unavoidable, I’m encouraged by the potential of what we can do together to ensure we’re as prepared as we can be. We hope that the learnings from this project will provide a strong framework to scale this work and contribute to long term sustainable disaster preparedness and awareness. 

You can pick the winner of the Google.org Impact Challenge Illinois

Last month, eight high school students in Columbia, South Carolina started apprenticeships at local businesses through a program to support homegrown talent in the area. In Cleveland, 25 high schoolers are hard at work on their internships at a local manufacturer, on a track to have a permanent job by the spring. And in Pittsburgh, hundreds of women participated in pay-what-you-can workshops, ranging from DIY synthesizer making to custom vinyl cutting.

Since our start last year, the Google.org Impact Challenge has awarded $1 million to 16 nonprofits in four cities: Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City, Columbia, S.C., and Cleveland, all cities we visit on our Grow with Google tour across the U.S. Selected by a panel of local advisors, each organization came up with a new way to create economic opportunities for the communities they serve. At Google, when we see something that’s working, we find a way to make it even better.

For our next Google.org Impact Challenge in the U.S., we decided to cast a wider net and support organizations whose reach will extend beyond one metropolitan area. To support Grow with Google’s initiative to create economic opportunities for all Americans, we launched a new statewide Impact Challenge, giving Google.org the ability to support an even more diverse group of organizations. Last September, we convened our first statewide Impact Challenge in Illinois, and 167 nonprofits from all corners of the Prairie State applied with their boldest ideas to make positive change.

Today, we are pleased to announce the winners, each of whom will receive $75,000 in grant funding and Google training to make their ideas a reality. One of these winners will receive an extra $250,000, and it’s up to you to pick who wins. You can select your favorite on our site today; voting ends on February 14.

Grow With Google Illinois

  • After School Matters:Supporting a program to guide disconnected Chicago youth onto individualized college and career pathways.

  • Cara Chicago:Helping people affected by poverty and the challenges that come with it get quality jobs.

  • Future Founders Foundation: Empowering young adults to start their own businesses through a free accelerator.

  • Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois:Increasing on-site accessibility to STEM education for girls in over 40 rural Illinois counties.

  • Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs: Creating community-owned grocery stores in small towns to increase access to fresh produce and meats from local farmers.

  • Manufacturing Renaissance: Offering paid work experiences, training for industry credentials, career and college coaching to underserved youth for careers in manufacturing.

  • North Lawndale Employment Network: Providing transitional jobs for men and women returning from incarceration.

  • Mattoon in Motion:Supporting a sustainable, collaborative space for entrepreneurs to receive training, mentoring, and coaching.

  • True Star Foundation Inc.: Helping small businesses and nonprofits create social media content, blog posts, videos, and more through a youth-led digital marketing agency.

  • YWCA of McLean County:Building employment skills for formerly incarcerated women.

Thanks to our panel of local advisors for selecting such a great group of finalists. Now it’s time for you to weigh in. Vote through our website to select which of the 10 winners will receive the People’s Choice Award and and additional $250,000. Public voting will end in one week, on February 14, and the winner will be announced on February 15.

Expanding knowledge access with the Wikimedia Foundation

For 18 years, Wikipedia has been the internet’s encyclopedia, contributing to the vast knowledge available on the open web, and the Wikimedia Foundation has long shared in our mission of making information accessible to people around the world.


Our organizations have partnered throughout the years on initiatives that further our joint goals around knowledge access, including making information available through Google Search. Many individual Googlers also show their support for Wikimedia, through donations and from active participation in the community. We look forward to continuing our close partnership with new initiatives and commitments to achieving our shared goals.


As the next billion people come online, it’s critical that the content on the web reflect the diversity of its users. Currently, the web is lacking content in many local languages and thus restricts the information that people can access. By collaborating on programs to increase the availability of local language content and providing technology tools for Wikipedia editors, we aim to bridge this gap and empower local editors to serve their communities with relevant content in their native languages.


Creating new articles from scratch can be time and resource intensive for volunteer editors, and translation tools can be useful to help generate local language content. To make it easier for editors to create this native language content, we’re providing access to the Google Translate API through Wikipedia’s content translation tool at no cost. We’re also working with Wikimedia and their editor community to expand our Project Tiger initiative (now collectively referred to as GLOW - Growing Local Language Content on Wikipedia), which we piloted last year as a competition between 12 language communities in India to create more native language content. We will expand these programs with Wikimedia affiliates and volunteers to provide editors with resources and insights to drive the creation of new Wikipedia articles across 10 languages in India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and the Middle East and North Africa region.


Bringing local language information online comes with new challenges in maintaining Wikipedia’s content and citation standards. Google Cloud Custom Search API helps editors ensure contributions are appropriately cited from sources. Our Cloud Vision API enables editors to digitize public domain books in Indic languages to include more diverse, reputable sources for citations. Both of these tools will be provided to Wikimedia at no cost.


While efforts to empower editors will help them continue to add more information and knowledge to the web, we also aim to support the long-term health of the Wikimedia projects so they are  available for generations to come. To that end, Google.org is donating $2 million to the Wikimedia Endowment, the first of Google’s contributions to its fund for long term sustainability. This brings our total support to more than $7.5 million, which includes an additional $1.1 million to the Wikimedia Foundation annual fund during a special campaign last year where Google employees helped decide where to direct Google's donation dollars.


With this continued partnership, we look forward to the strides we can make in bringing more of the world’s information online and making knowledge accessible to all.


How an IT support certificate transforms careers

A man who never finished college from Nebraska, a U.S. Army medical specialist from Kentucky and a mother of five from California. They’re three different people who have something pretty special in common: they were able to jump start their careers with the Google IT Support Professional Certificate. It’s a first-of-its-kind online program from Grow with Google, that gives you the skills to launch a career in IT support and connects you with potential employers. With an estimated 150,000 open roles, IT support is one of the fastest-growing fields in America. In its first year, thousands of learners from across the country have already completed the program—many of whom have transformed their lives and careers. Here are a few of their stories.

Daniel: Night security guard who found daylight with an IT Support role

Grand Island, Nebraska

Daniel Anderson: IT Support Specialist

When his fiance got her first teaching job, Daniel Anderson left college and moved to Grand Island, Nebraska to be with her. Without a college degree, he struggled to find a job. Eventually, Central Community College hired him as a night security officer, but it was far from the career in technology he had once envisioned. Knowing his passion for computers, a friend encouraged him to check out the Google IT Support Professional Certificate. While working nights, he enrolled and got his certificate in five months. Soon after that, Daniel got an email about an IT job at Central Community College. His Google credentials stood out against other candidates and he got the role as an IT Support Specialist. Now married, Daniel is working in a job he loves, and that lets him spend more time with his new wife.

Yvonne: Put five kids through college, then found a career of her own

Vallejo, CA

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Yvonne, from Vallejo, CA, has never been one to shy away from a challenge. She’s been through 23 surgeries and a permanent tracheostomy, home-schooled two sons with learning disabilities, and put five children through college. But after her kids all graduated, she faced another challenge: what to do next.  She had always valued the importance of technology, so that seemed like a good place to start. On a recommendation from one of her sons, Yvonne enrolled in the IT Support Professional Certificate program, and quickly completed it. With the certificate in hand and a newfound confidence, she landed a product engineering job with a driverless car company. The company was especially impressed with her skills in debugging, networking, and monitoring operating systems through remote virtualization tests—all skills she learned with the certificate. Once again Yvonne has risen to the challenge, but we’re sure that’s not a surprise to anyone.

Andrew: U.S. Army vet with a new mission

Paducah, KY

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Andrew spent eight years in the Army as a medical specialist, but around the barracks he was better known as the unofficial IT guy. So when logistics and costs dimmed his plans for a post-military medical career, Andrew began to think about IT. While searching for options that could give him credentials, Google’s IT Support Professional Certificate caught his eye. The flexibility of being able to do the courses in his free time was very appealing, and he enrolled. The certificate built on his basic networking knowledge, but also challenged him with his first exposure to Linux. In six months he completed the certificate and soon had a job as a Level 1 Technician at an IT consultancy in Paducah. Andrew is thrilled to now be the official IT guy.

Since its launch in January of 2018, people from all different places and backgrounds have completed the IT certificate, including learners at more than 10 nonprofit community organizations and 25 community colleges. If you are interested in exploring an IT career too, learn more at The Google IT Support Professional Certificate page on Coursera.

Google AI Impact Challenge: a week to apply, plus research on why you should

In my twelve years at Google, I've seen that big things happen when you don't shy away from big ideas—especially when you pair those ideas with emerging technology. We're trying to encourage more of that kind of thinking with the Google AI Impact Challenge, a call for organizations to use AI to help address social, humanitarian and environmental problems. Before you read on, remember this: there are only seven days left to apply to the Challenge!


Hundreds of nonprofits and research organizations have already applied, and there’s good reason for all the excitement. Recently, we collaborated with McKinsey on research to identify ways AI can drive social change. The resulting report shows that AI projects have the potential to improve all 17 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: end poverty and hunger, promote good health and wellbeing for all, and several more.

What works?

According to the research, AI has the greatest potential for impact in four areas: health and hunger, education, justice, equality and inclusion. AI can have the largest and most immediate impact through the application of computer vision, giving machines the ability to understand images and videos, and natural language processing, teaching computers to parse and understand human languages.


Computer vision can be used to improve health through better disease detection, our environment through wildlife tracking, and our education through new forms of learning for people with different learning capabilities. You’ve seen natural language processing at work in chatbots, which make the job-seeking process more efficient, or allow for better interaction between people seeking medical help and health providers.

What’s the hold up?

While AI cannot solve every problem, its potential is profound. So why isn’t every nonprofit and social entrepreneur embracing it? Three of the greatest challenges are access to talent, access to relevant data, and the capacity to deploy and sustain an AI project once it’s created. Nonprofits and their funders, the private sector and governments will need to work together to address these challenges.


To solve for talent scarcity, we need to continue to push for more education globally—especially for professionals willing to pursue AI. Private and public sector organizations may be able to open access to subsets of their data that could serve the clear public interest. Tools like Dataset Search are making it easier to discover potentially relevant datasets. Also, Nonprofits should look for opportunities to collect and share data most relevant to the problems they are looking to address. Finally, funders should consider how they can best support the ongoing deployment of AI projects and ensure social sector professionals have access to basic AI training.


McKinsey’s findings also show that to be successful, AI tools and techniques must be applied responsibly: clear principles must be established so that the solutions consider potential negative impacts—like the perpetuation of bias—on disadvantaged populations.


So, back to what I told you to remember: applications for the AI Impact Challenge close in seven days, on January 22 (@ 11:59:59 PST, to be exact). I’ll be part of an international panel of expert reviewers that will review all finalists and ultimately decide which ones will receive funds from our $25 million pool as well as other resources. We're excited to see what you come up with.

Introducing the Google.org Fellowship

Samantha Ainsley usually spends her days as a software engineer and technical lead for Google Cloud Platform, but for six months last year, she applied her skills to a different cause: stopping human trafficking. Samantha, along with four other Googlers, were part of a pilot that allowed them to step away from their jobs and dedicate their time to helping Thorn, a Google.org grantee that builds technology to defend children from sexual abuse. The goal of the pilot was to test what happens when we combine Google.org funding with full-time support from Googlers with experience in AI, machine learning and other technical skills. The Fellows and Thorn built tools to find patterns in data that law enforcement can use to identify and find child victims faster.

Introducing the Google.org Fellowship

The success of the pilot led to the creation of the Google.org Fellowship. Now, Google employees can apply to do full-time pro bono work for up to six months with grantees working in areas like education, criminal justice, or economic opportunity. They’ll use their skills in engineering, product management, and user experience design to help Google.org grantees solve some of their toughest technical challenges. In 2019, we expect the Fellows will spend 50,000 hours with some of our top nonprofit grantees.

Our next Fellowship starts today with Goodwill Industries International, the nation’s leader in job placement, expert in workforce training and development, and recipient of a $10 million Google.org grant in 2017. A team of seven Google.org Fellows, including software engineers and data scientists, will work in community-based Goodwill organizations across the United States—in cities like Austin, Kalamazoo and Louisville—to help Goodwill increase the impact of its vocational programs. When finished, these Goodwill organizations will have better insight into what works best in their job training programs to improve services for job seekers.

This program brings our people alongside our philanthropy to help nonprofits around the world achieve their missions. And the pilot showed us how much Googlers benefitted, too: they came back to Google with sharpened skills and a renewed outlook on their work. In Samantha’s words, ”As I'd hoped, my Fellowship opened my eyes and humbled me. What I didn't anticipate, however, is that I would come back to Google a stronger and more dedicated engineer. My work with Thorn reminded me that our mission as engineers is not to simply build the newest and fastest technologies: our mission is to seek solutions to pressing problems no matter how daunting."

As the year unfolds, and dozens of Google.org Fellows complete their projects, we look forward to seeing what this idea—and 50,000 Googler hours—can accomplish.